I also picked up a basic steno keyboard earlier in 2022 (the EcoSteno, I think). I'm no good with it yet (I'm still working through layout drills, honestly), but for me, the draw isn't in transcription or text input specifically, but in chord-based control over my computer more generally.
A standard computer keyboard layout has ~100 keys. You can use various modifier keys (Ctrl, Alt, Shift, Meta) and combinations thereof to assign multiple meanings to each key, which morally organizes the keyboard into layers depending on which modifiers are active, but most layers are inconvenient to reach -- anything beyond two modifiers gets annoying and sees limited use. You're almost always on the unmodified layer.
A stenotype board has only ~20 keys, but the unit of input is an entire set of keys rather than a single key. In principle, you can comfortably enter chords of up to 10 keys at once, giving ~184,756 (20 choose 10) inputs. This is modified a bit by ergonomics, but it's still orders of magnitude more possibilities than an idealized keyboard with modifiers (something like 1,600).
That kind of space for addressing commands begs for some kind of principled organization. The Plover community calls assignments of commands to chords "dictionaries", and they generally follow an internally-consistent set of rules called a "theory". If you're working with English input, for example, you'll learn a theory that lets you almost always reason out the chord for a word.
There's nothing that limits stenographic input to transcription, though. You can assemble, say, a dictionary of Emacs commands, and assign related commands chords that share a common subset of keys. (Emacs is kind of like this already IMHO, but I am not a fan of the modifier+key system -- it feels like the addressing space is too small, and I'm afraid to customize the default keymap.)
Moreover, you aren't limited to single-chord input either. Multi-chord input is common; you can easily define entries in the dictionary which are based on a sequence of chords. I believe (but lack the experience to confirm) that English dictionaries tend to be organized around syllables or syllable clusters; the normal English stenotype layout specifically has sections for initial consonent, vowel, and terminal consonant, and theories tend to organize around that structure. Again, there's no reason you can't apply the same tools to non-transcription inputs.
I think this is a really cool input system, and for my interests, complementary to a regular QWERTY keyboard. I still want to learn a proper English theory (to avoid having to switch frequently between multiple keyboards!), but I mostly just want to have the option of chorded input in the first place.
I goofed on my calculations a little bit -- steno boards are designed so that one finger can depress two keys at once, so in principle you can actually hit all 20 keys simultaneously. You can't just hit any two keys with the same finger, though, so I don't believe it gets quite to 2^20 possibilities.
(Also, I computed only 20 choose 10, when you can of course have any smaller subset as well. I guess the point here is, a stenotype gives you even more than 184k inputs.)
A standard computer keyboard layout has ~100 keys. You can use various modifier keys (Ctrl, Alt, Shift, Meta) and combinations thereof to assign multiple meanings to each key, which morally organizes the keyboard into layers depending on which modifiers are active, but most layers are inconvenient to reach -- anything beyond two modifiers gets annoying and sees limited use. You're almost always on the unmodified layer.
A stenotype board has only ~20 keys, but the unit of input is an entire set of keys rather than a single key. In principle, you can comfortably enter chords of up to 10 keys at once, giving ~184,756 (20 choose 10) inputs. This is modified a bit by ergonomics, but it's still orders of magnitude more possibilities than an idealized keyboard with modifiers (something like 1,600).
That kind of space for addressing commands begs for some kind of principled organization. The Plover community calls assignments of commands to chords "dictionaries", and they generally follow an internally-consistent set of rules called a "theory". If you're working with English input, for example, you'll learn a theory that lets you almost always reason out the chord for a word.
There's nothing that limits stenographic input to transcription, though. You can assemble, say, a dictionary of Emacs commands, and assign related commands chords that share a common subset of keys. (Emacs is kind of like this already IMHO, but I am not a fan of the modifier+key system -- it feels like the addressing space is too small, and I'm afraid to customize the default keymap.)
Moreover, you aren't limited to single-chord input either. Multi-chord input is common; you can easily define entries in the dictionary which are based on a sequence of chords. I believe (but lack the experience to confirm) that English dictionaries tend to be organized around syllables or syllable clusters; the normal English stenotype layout specifically has sections for initial consonent, vowel, and terminal consonant, and theories tend to organize around that structure. Again, there's no reason you can't apply the same tools to non-transcription inputs.
I think this is a really cool input system, and for my interests, complementary to a regular QWERTY keyboard. I still want to learn a proper English theory (to avoid having to switch frequently between multiple keyboards!), but I mostly just want to have the option of chorded input in the first place.